When it comes to driving games, “parkour action” isn’t a phrase I’d immediately associate with the genre. But that’s what the Distance team – Refract Studios – are showing in their latest trailer. The Nitronic Rush devs have only a few days left on their Kickstarter, with a fifth of the money left to go, the latest video is part of their final push. And it’s one worth watching, by my eyes.

I’m not sure that doing spins really quite counts as parkour, but this certainly shows off how much gravity is going to be ignored as you impossibly race around on tracks that make WipEout look like the M4. It would seem a shame if they didn’t get the final $27k they’re after, having gotten this far.

I mostly like the music in the trailers but hate that they make it 20dB louder than every other video on the entire internet ever (though hats off for managing that without clipping). The things are released just far enough apart that I forget to turn the volume down every time and then have to bake cookies for the neighbors. Harumph.

Edit: This was hyperbole, of course, but based on my experience with said videos. But this evening, the Internet saw fit to punish my complaint with even louder [non-Distance] videos. My volume knob, usually at -30dB or so for games and at -50dB for Distance trailers, now sits at -62dB. :|

All things considered, Nitronic Rush isn’t a commercial product, but a student project. If you now take in account its implications, and extrapolate to what these guys could (WILL) do at full-time, not even a product by zero will be able to nullify the level of awesomeness.

I honestly don’t see the problem even if it was just ‘Nitronic Rush with multiplayer’ (which it isn’t really). Especially not when they’ve confirmed they’ll have split-screen, so I can play crazy car Tron tag with my friends on the TV! Also, no one else has been doing this type of game for years, so having another one by guys with a proven track record is great!

Nitronic Rush reminded me of San Francisco 2049, particularly 2049’s stunt mode. That was on the Dreamcast. Four player split-screen stunt mode was quite a party game, using retractable wings to perform the biggest stunts possible and then trying not to stuff the landings so you could actually get the points credit.

Yeah, I really love the slightly less contrasting, higher fidelity Tron: Legacy style they are going for with Distance. NR had really poor texture resolution and overall detail (not that it mattered all that much when your car was rotation along all 3 axes at 250 mph), all it had going for it was the graphical style.

Why can’t we have more racing games where you’re actually on foot? Do real parkour! Maybe other people aren’t like me. It seemed that the only people who loved the superb Rayman racing game from 10 years ago were myself and my friends. That game was awesome! It was like a fast-paced 3D platformer but with other players. Though, having said that, it seemed that me and my friends were the only people who liked any Rayman game before Origins and Rabbids came along.

I backed this day one. Its exactly my kind of game, and Nitronic Rush was great.
I’m pretty sad to see this is struggling like it has, I just hope that there is enough of a push to get it over its funding point.

Looks pretty fun but hnnnngh that is not parkour. Stop throwing around buzzwords and diluting the language, you shits! Burnout Paradise was closer to parkour than this. Hell, GTA4 was closer to parkour than this.

In NR, you can climb buildings and obstacles, as well as jump, and if you’re skilled enough, “hang” from a wall or even a cieling without moving. Seems to include everything about parkour, plus some unique carkour elements.

Burnout Paradise…you mean the game where golden (or police) Formula sports-cars were racing at about Mach 5 through traffic in pseudo-realistic city (the awesome part) and exploded when they even just touched the invisible walls around every road? (the not-so parkour part)

I’m glad to see some more coverage of this on RPS. I’m starting to wonder if maybe kickstarter is a bad idea for getting media exposure. It turns into the writer deciding if he is going to write about another kickstarter project instead of a unique game sequel.

Oh and last I checked it’s getting close to the $100k mark! I think it’s going to make it.

Oh wow, someone backed the $10k arcade machine. That’s where the jump came from. I was kind of hoping no one would get this tier actually. Hopefully they know what putting together and shipping an arcade machine will take. I’ve built one myself and it wasn’t a walk in the park for sure.